


The Paths We Walk (FFXIV Write 2019)

by mementomoe



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: F/M, Shadowbringers Spoilers, Warnings and tags will be in chapter notes at the beginning, Will spoil up to 5.05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-10
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-10-14 04:41:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 30
Words: 13,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20594876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mementomoe/pseuds/mementomoe
Summary: A collection of stories about the Warrior of Light and their friends. Written for FFXIV Write 2019





	1. Voracious

**Author's Note:**

> Lue-Reeq is a precious idiot I adore, and I won't have anyone speak ill of him in my presence. He's basically my IRL cat brought to life in catboy form.

A’lin looks at the feast behind her new hunting partner. She hardly knows the young man, but she sees one plump Dodo two wines that possibly predate the Flood, and a fruit basket stacked almost five fulms high.

There are two possibilities: Lue-Reeq is very rich or he puts himself in debt to eat much, and very fancy foods.

A’lin twitches her tail and goes for the former. He dresses like an Ishgardian lordling would while the War still went on. He seems to have always had an easy life, with servants bringing him food and information as well.

“Eat up, my friend!” He says as he motions to everything behind him. “You must be hungry after our excursion to Ahm Areng.”

She looks it over. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were a gillionare.” She chuckles to herself. “And I don’t mean the quantity. I mean the quality.”

Too bad she doesn’t much care for wine. She’ll have to find an excuse to ask for an ale or cider recommendation later.

“It is nothing you do not deserve,” he says, his eyes bright. “A small cost to hunt a Cardinal Virtue.”

“Then I suppose you have a most voracious appetite. I Don’t think I can even eat a quarter that dodo.”

“Dodo?”

Shit, what was the word. “The poultry?”

He nods his head. “Ah, yes, Rail. They’re tricky birds, both to kill and prepare right. Are they called dodos where you’re from? Did you ever say where that was?”

She can’t say the source, or Eorzea, or La Noscea. The Exarch had given her a recommendation, but it felt odd.

“Far from here,” she says. That’s enough. “You know, I still am hungry though, so let’s see your appetite versus mine, friend.”

Lue-Reeq nods his head. “Ah, but your name?”

“A’lin,” she says. Her ears twitch as she says that. “Can’t believe I hadn’t offered it to you.”

“A’lin and Reeq,” he says trying the name on. “Yes, it works well, friend. Now, please. Eat.”

A challenge she’ll take.


	2. Bargain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my own liveblogging of my story, I had the Haurchefant Mammet take a life of his own, or rather, became a house to a soul.
> 
> Sadly, all my plans crashed like waves on a beach when Shadowbringers came out, so this is something I did. (I'll edit the story some later)

She’d been given cryptic words the previous evening as she settled her grief with Myste.

First was a phrase she had read once, and heard once before. _Where else can I go? Who else can I love but you?_

But after that, when she recognized those words, Myste had told her to seek him out.

She says Myste, but she has her own suspicions.. She cleans herself up, cleans up the rusted armor and dirty gambeson. More than once she sighs as she looks at the new scar on her left shoulder. A pair of star-shaped scars from when she wasn’t fast enough to fully dodge a simulacrum’s spear.

With first dawn, however, she puts everything on, and makes her way back to Last Vigil.

“A’lin.”

That voice is one she knows too well, Edmont’s. “I had hoped you would come soon. The mammet we gave you. You said there was something wrong with it, no?”

She nods her head. The problem at the time had been the lack of a soul. A familiar one.

“There was quite a bit of rust. From what I heard on the front lines, you often had it out. The maintenance was easy enough. The past few days, everything has been normal. Its ability to sense the area, the ways it poses. Last night, however, it changed.”

Gods. What happened? “I beg your pardon? I hope that nothing went wrong, Edmont.”

“Nothing of the sort,” he tells her. “Nothing wrong, unless you consider critique of my way to set a scene wrong.”

So it was true. Haurchefant was in the mammet again. But this time others could hear him, not unique to her. She puts on a smile. “All I’ll tell you is I expected such a thing.”

She starts to rush the few yalms to Fortemps Manor from her spot by the southern Pillars.

She can hear Edmont call out to her, but as soon as she opens the door, she can see the Mammet there as well.

“You took my clue!” she hears the mammet say. He breaks into a grin clenches his fist with joy..

Lin picks him up and spins him around. “So it’s true! You were Myste! But I have so many questions!”

The grin breaks. “I wasn’t Myste,” he says.

She shrugs. “Well, in part. Given all the aether anomalies and certain things he told me, I know it was another time part of me manifested against my will.”

Haurchefant shakes his head. “Myste took my appearance, yes, mixed with some of Ysayle’s, but Save for perhaps a bell total over the past two weeks, I was a prisoner.”

They make their way to his room – her room – their room. And the talk continues.

“I had hoped with your words, perhaps there would be more than a return to this norm we’ve had for a year.” She leans against the bed. “That I could perhaps have wished you a new body, perhaps.”

She watches her husband pace the bed. “I would much enjoy it as well, but I did not expect anything better than this. The fact my father can hear me, and all the servants, that’s nothing short of a miracle.”

Lin reaches to him. “I can’t pretend this isn’t just some way of dealing with my grief then. Not to others, not to myself. I can’t believe it took me a year to learn the truth. I was about to–”

“I know.” Haurchefant cuts her off. “I always wished you could have understood the truth.”

“And yet, if you must know, your presence did nothing for my grief. I don’t know if it would be the same now I know the truth. A year, and the wound is still as fresh as the day you–” She shakes her head.

She doesn’t know what she’s asking. Is it a mere wish to shove her grief away, or is she begging for him to leave her.

Haurchefant climbs on her lap. “I feel more connected now, in a sense. That I’m more in control. If you need me to leave now, I’m certain I can, but if you want me to ever come back, you need only say my name and I’ll return. Would you like me to leave?”

She pauses. “Say your farewells. The things you wish you could have said to your loved ones. Days, weeks, whatever it is you need to tell them.”

He laughs enough to make her smile. “Tis a short list, my dear. Some words to Father, my half-brothers, and perhaps Aymeric as well. He was one of my few superiors I trusted, even before he took your side as soon as he heard it.”

She presses her lips against the doll’s forehead. “If you need help, I’ll be there.”

The farewells take little time. The rest of the day, and some of the next, but when she leaves Coerthas, Lin is alone, with a wound-down mammet in her pack.

One day, she may call upon him again, but this was no time to bargain with the gods for a soul to return from the Sea. It was time to face the world after a year of lying to herself.


	3. Lost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A continuation of Bargain.
> 
> Also, Content Warning: Suicide and Depression are discussed in this chapter.

A’lin didn’t let her grief define her after she and Haurchefant parted ways.

She asked for the help of the Marchers on some tasks, and each of them relished in the chance to fight foes in both that odd Rift and in a colony of Garlemald, fighting and proving legends in both.

She pushed to destroy the title “Warrior of Light” as the one most went to. She asked for Lin of the Frost, an old nickname she had as a child, meaningelss, or A’lin the Skysinger, granted to her by two friends after a fight against a siren. However, she ended up in a compromise. Lin of the Dawn. Too many associated her with the title she despised to let her completely shed it.

She’s not fond of what she agreed on, but at least she has her name there for once.

Too soon, she finds the compromise is not one. Only those closest to her adopt it, too many keeping her old one.

And each step she takes, she ends up lost again as the Warrior of Light. No chances to rest, seek answers. From dealing with a prisoner trade she knows the other side will act in bad faith in, losing Alphinaud as a constant by her side, and then the fact war with Garlemald – a war of aggression, not rebellion or defense – is ever more likely.

After Thancred falls to the call, Lin half-wishes she would as well. Let whatever malicious spirit sever her ties to her body as it did the others.

When the caller brings her halfway, tells her of a beacon of some sort, she’s half-dead inside. Another step to lose herself in.

Yet in the end, the woman lost in the title of Warrior of Light finds herself again when she becomes the Warrior of Darkness. Lin of the Dusk, Lin the Shadowbringer, Lin, the Song upon the Wind.

Several new titles, and none hide the woman from view.


	4. Shifiting Blame

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story takes place in an alternate universe of sorts where A'lin (my main/only WoL) is an adventurer friend to a friend of mine's Main WoL. M'yrr has very different insights than A'lin, but despite this, they're generally thicker than thieves, and the relationship gets better before the end of HW

“Fuck you.”

M’yrr can usually predict the way things went. A sudden curse and a large splash of ale across his hood and mask is not one of the things. He grits his teeth together and wipes a cloth over the wood and steel owl-like mask he wears.

“I beg your pardon?”

Lin’s nostrils flare and she bares her fangs. “I said. Fuck. You.” Her red eyes glow with a fire he cannot place.

He tries to keep his voice even, find out what brought this on. “All I said was that it’s a shame your lover died. That I wished you had been there as well on the ramparts as he–”

The woman punches his cheek. “My lover? _My_ lover? I haven’t fucked him since we took down Stone Vigil.”

So that is how it goes. “Is that why you always left when I was called to Dragonhead? That things ended poorly? I regret staying friendly then if he upset you. Though you still accompanied me to the camp, so I must say I’m confused.”

She takes a few breaths as her eyes blink in shock. “Gods, you cannot be serious. That you didn’t see it. All this time, I thought perhaps it was possible. He had another whom he loved. I was but a passing cloud, lovely and nothing but mist, compared to his sun. Warm and giving. I kept following that sun, helping plan excuses to bring him closer to Haurchefant. Let him catch that sun. Had I known he couldn’t return the affections, let’s just say I still wouldn’t be a lover, but I would not have put in so much effort to make myself scarce when they were alone.”

“A lovely metaphor. It is a shame this man–”

Lin grabs the ale of the man behind her and splashes it on him. “And now it’s back to those two words. Fuck. You. I can’t make it much clearer. You’re too smart to be this stupid, M’yrr.”

It hits him with that. The man described was not some other person. She described her own behavior with him.

“I may have deserved the first splash,” M’yrr says. “But the punch, and stealing someone else’s mug for a second pint in my face was uncalled for.”

“It’s your fault!” she says. “He’s dead because of you! And all this time, I had hoped that I could be happy if the man I fancied had his lover, even if said lover wasn’t me. But it’s naught. You deserved it all you fucking bird!”

Lin tries to punch him again, but he stops her hand this time. Another blow from her other hand, and he grabs the other.

M’yrr for once is glad for his flat voice and unreadable mask. Underneath it, every feature on his friend is the same on his face. “It’s not my fault that two loves went unrequited. Had either of you spoken plain before his last breaths, at least one of you could have moved on. You chose to play a helpless maiden when you aren’t.”

She growls and tries again to start a fight. “I did everything right! You fucked up! Fuck you.”

With that, she tuns on her heel, tail bushed beyond its usual fluff, and leaves.

It could have gone better.


	5. Sealed Pasts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The actual prompt for the day was Vault, but I went nope nope nope.
> 
> Though this does touch on the events therein.

_The Warrior of Light has four gaps in the tales. Times when few, if any, saw her. Only the longest has any moments where others see her, and even then, only a few bells at most for each crossing save one. It was only enough to plot her general course, there wheres, but not the wherefores._

_There’s only one thing each disappearance has in common._

_A greatsword._

_There’s several skills she’s proficient at, and she has used the sword in various moments (Most obvious when she blocked a sword 16 yalms long with her own one eighth that), but the times she trains with it are filled with blanks. No one knows how she got it, who she speaks with when she uses it, where she goes (save, again, for the longest), what mindset brings her to it, or why she continues._

_The only clue one has is the first disappearance, she didn’t have the sword when she left Fortemps Manor on a dark night, blood still covering her hands as she curses others for not doing enough to save someone._

_When she returns a week later, she has a third gem on her necklace, one shaped like a heart, with the mark shaped like a sword on it._

_The second and fourth disappearances are likewise short, her bardic gambesons melting into plate, bow striaghtening into a sword. Perhaps it is a source of comfort in some way._

_Whoever she seeks when she calls on the sword is either the luckiest one alive for knowing these secrets, or the unluckiest for having to face her repeatedly._

G’raha sets aside the book and looks into the portal. The Revolutions of Ala Mhigo and Doma have been settled, both are free. It should be a good time to call upon her, and it only took a few epochs to reach such a point.

The person she faces down is naught but a child, elezen, blue-haired.

While an Xaela man and an Ishgardian girl watch the fight, the one A’lin faces is not another, but a fragment of her soul. He senses more in there, but it’s hard to read through the mirror, from another world.

The writer of the book is most correct, in his eyes, she’s quite unlucky in such a way, but perhaps one day, that will change.


	6. The Other Scions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always loved the character A'aba. Maybe it's cuz he's from the same clan as my WoL, or maybe it's just he's adorably boisterous during what little time he shows up, but he always makes those early quests a joy. For the prompt "First Steps"

A’lin doesn’t know what to make of this place. The Waking Sands, Papalymo had called it. It’s a basement, bigger than the home it’s connected to, and full of so many people of all the races. What can she do? Where is she supposed to go?

“Lin?”

The voice takes her out of her thoughts as she explores, she turns to see a face she recognizes. Her uncle is here? Well, she has several, but none were as close as A’aba. She can see him immediately.

Before she can speak, his arms are around her. “God be good, Lin. I heard you disappeared before the calamity, but now you’re–”

Lin smiles. “I wish I could have written, Aba. But the place I was… wasn’t reliable enough, and then I meant to write clan when I got to Gridania, but got caught up in so much and, and, I’m so sorry.” She finds tears falling. Home didn’t quite feel like a place she could call it that any more. But if not, then what did?

Seeing her uncle, however, brings joy.

“Well, I won’t let you make excuses any longer, Lin. You’ll make our tribe proud, not just by surviving, but you must have done something big to get the attention of the Scions.”

In theory, she should make her way to the Solar as instructed, but that can wait a while.

“I have a few people you need to meet, anyway. There’s this boy with the Echo from Gyr Abania. Pretty shy, but I bet he’d be glad to make a friend.”

Her tail twitches. “The Echo, you say? Well, funny story, but I guess I have it too.”

Aba chuckles to himself. “I had a feeling.”


	7. Forgiven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A'lin is on good terms with Alphinaud, but that doesn't mean they can't have two very different views on someone.

At first, the ride to the Crystarium is quiet.

Yet Alphinaud can feel something eating at Lin as they head back.

It’s about halfway across the Divide when she finally speaks up. “What in the seven hells were you thinking, Alphinaud? You knew he was Gaius and you still worked with him. I was willing to ignore the fact you did that, thought he used some pseudonym with you, but then you call him Gaius when you tell me of your adventures in Garlemald.”

His voice catches as he tries to help. “If it makes any difference, I did not know that he was Gaius at first. It came out some time after we saw an encampment that fell to Black Rose. It doesn’t make a difference, he’s against Garlemald too.”

“He’s against the Ascian involvement in Garlemald. He still speaks of the glory of the Empire. Still thinks they have every right to conquer. Are still the supreme race. He’s no ally of mine. Nor is he an enemy of mine enemy I can trust for long.”

“He hates the Galvus family.”

“And he will take their place as Emperor should he have half a chance! Continue the crusade to conquer the whole of Hydaelyn because it is his right.”

Alphinaud sighs. This argument will go nowhere. He knows Lin can change her mind with enough information, but it took him necessity to trust Gaius. Necessity she has no chance to get any time soon.

“He didn’t have to return my body to the Scions, or so I’m told by Alisaie.”

Lin’s lips tighten and she huffs. “Of course he had to, you were bad for his continued mission. Half the alliance thinks he’s fine enough and we can trust him. I don’t. I never will. I’d rather die to Black Rose than bow to him as my ruler.”

She takes a few breaths. “But I’m glad he has enough decency to not treat you as a captive. Maybe there’s something in that I can use against him when I return.”


	8. Free Day: Lies and Memories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the first Makeup/Free day. I went with a scene I decided had to have happened somewhere, but didn't know if I'd get a chance to write now.

The swim back to shore is boring. Lin knows her friends probably are near the gate, and everything is south, but it’s had to figure out south when there’s no celestial bodies to guide her.

The castle and the stairs seem to be the same orientation as when she passed the untouchable gate, but perhaps there is more to it than that.

_I found no such individual residing in the tower when it passed into my care_.

An odd phrase to pass her mind as she swam. Why those words of the Exarch are remembered now is beyond her.

Her eyes close for a second, and she remembers several beams of aether crossing her path, aimed at a friend, only for him to emerge unscathed, his green eye changed to match the sanguine hue of the other.

Lin stops swimming.

G’raha wasn’t in the tower when Doga and Unei passed their blood, and thus control of the Tower, to him.

She noticed the Exarch was slight of build, and quite possibly shorter than her (given his propensity for the bares soles on his sandals and her love of giving herself extra height with her own boots, she isn’t certain of the latter), just like G’raha was, but those alone weren’t enough.

Gods, if only she could remember his voice. Everything before Ishgard is muddied. She can’t even remember A’aba’s voice, much to her dismay.

Still, such a fact is one coincidence. She needs more than that to suspect it.

Especially since if she’s right, then whatever hell he went through would break her, to know a friend had to go through such.

Best to focus on the mission at hand. A scepter and shoes await her when she gets to shore.


	9. Hesitations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lin's jobs vary depending on if she's the WoL, an Adventuring Friend, or just another citizen of Eorzea. The only common job is Bard. Dragoon is one of two she only has as WoL.

A’lin hits the training dummy with her spear with a quick thrust.

She wanted to get stronger, but now she’s hunting some heretical thief?

Keep her knees loose and prepare for the charge.

She _saved_ someone from this fate only six weeks ago.

Leap land on the dummy and flip back to the start.

She keeps repeating the practice Alberic gives her. She should be able to do this. She has to.

Of course, she knows far too well that the reason she does all this is not for some sense of right and wrong, but because she wanted an excuse to return to Coerthas.

Any chance to look upon that face is worth it.

The strong nose, the focused blue eyes, hair as clear as ice.Why does he fascinate her so? She isn’t even staying at the Observatorium, but Dragonhead. All for the hopes of glimpses of the commander’s face as she trains.

When did she fall in love Haurchefant? He was supposed to be a distraction that night, when she first came. Someone fun to enjoy because they were both interested. She didn’t even think she _could_ fall in love until she did.

Perhaps A’lin can walk up to his desk. Say those words and let him laugh in her face. Tell her he’s like that with everyone.Then she can get back to the task at hand and stop dancing in circles.

Metaphorically. Dancing in circles around the dummy is the practice her mentor perscribed her. Use the same steps repeatedly until she didn’t need to think about it.

But then, if she says those words, it opens up the possibility he’d return the feelings. It’s small. How could he like her? And when could he have fallen for her? After hearing about the Praetorium? Hero Worship. Nothing she’d want in a lover. If it was before, such as that kiss they shared over mead when she ran errands for trust, then perhaps she could live with it.

Too many hypotheticals bother her. So she’ll stay silent another day.


	10. Foster

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone else doing cute Grandpa G'raha shenanigans? Cuz I am. I'm taking an estimation of Lyna being late 20s/early 30s for this.

The best and worst parts of arriving far too soon compared to where he needs to take the Warrior from is waiting.

Best, because instead of having to make things up whenever he can, and hope he knows the world around, he learns. G’raha has always been good at learning. He can make up half-truths when needed now. There is a place for the Warrior to stay, an economy they don’t need to guess at.

Worst, because time between the worlds changes at its leisure. It’s been nigh on seventy years now, and he doesn’t know how much more he needs to wait. He trusts the world’s struggle with light to stay in this stalemate until the time is right. He fears, however, that some meddling has happened with the Ascians, as if they sense his own machinations. Was that boy, Vauthry, always able to control Sin Eaters? Or is that a power to counter his own fight. One he’s hardly started, if he’s honest.

Something tugs at his robes, distracting him from his idle path around the Crystarium.

He turns around and sees a girl there. Viera – _Viis_ he reminds himself – and naught more than four or five years old. She has a scratch on one knee, as if she tripped over him. (She probably did, he thinks)

“Are you lost, young one?” He asks.

She shakes her head. “The soldiers took me here, along with some others.”

He nods his head and listens. A survivor from the attack he heard about a few days ago.

“Your mother must be near.”

The girl looks at him. “They took me from her. She wasn’t moving and the soldiers told me they couldn’t bring her with me.”

An orphan, then. He holds out his hand. He can take her to the carers. Certainly one would let her be there.

“You’re the prince, aren’t you?”

He’d put any royal titles to rest decades ago. He wasn’t a prince. “A prince?”

“They used a fancy word for you. Can’t remember it, but said it’s like a prince from the bedtime stories I heard. You look fancy, like I’m told Princes are.”

G’raha picks her up. “What’s your name?”

“Lyna,” she says. “Why?”

He smiles. “If you like bedtime stories, I have several for you. Most aren’t allowed in the spire, but how about tonight, you stay there with me.”

He can take her to the carers tomorrow.

He’s lying if he thinks he’ll do that.


	11. The Dens of Limsa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Done for Day 11, Snuff.
> 
> CW: Potential Drug Use and Addiction

The area is thick with the smoke of Carvellain’s so-called spices, While most of the visitors are locals, privateers and the elite both. A member of the Syndacate of Ul’dah is in one corner, draped in prostitutes of multiple races.

Through the haze, you hear a song playing. Slow and modern, voice too smooth to have made use of the products.

“Welcome, good master,” you hear someone say. “How can we help you? We have a seat open over here for you. Any spice you like? Or would you prefer I tell you of them.”

To your side, you see an Au Ra woman, naught more than five fulms tall, her horns painted with red and gold stripes. She drapes her arms around yours and tugs you to a curved couch, surrounding an ebony table. The candle barely provides any more light than the chandeliers in this dim haze.

However, there is one nice touch to the location. The singer, dressed in something tight as she strums a guitar made of crackling aether.

“You have the Rabanastre Red?”

The Au Ra chuckles. “That’s hard to get these days, I won’t check unless I know you have the money.”

You show your purse to her and she smiles. This place is hopefully worth it.


	12. Kids Will Be Kids

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, my mind wanders a bit from the base prompt, but Fingers Crossed makes me think of kids and childhood, so have a scene from Lin when she's 10 or 12 or so.

Aba is the best uncle. None of the others wanted to teach her how to hold a bow out in the jungle yet, but he did. Lin smiles as she holds the bow in her hands, her first bow.

Lin hums as she follows her uncle, tail swishing wildly with joy. She wants to pretend she has arrows in, but when she tried that before they left, he told her if she did that again before he teaches her, then they’ll be done for the day.

“You’re excited, are you not?” Aba looks over his shoulder to her.

Lin bounces and nods her head. “I wanna be a hunter like you. Protect our lands. Get delicious beasts for feasts!”

Aba smiles and nods his head. “Good. I suppose the first part of my lesson needn’t be done, then. Those are the only reasons to level a weapon against another. I don’t want you to shame our clan and kill indiscriminately.”

From there, he teaches her a basic stance. Don’t shoot ahead of the chest. Grounding her feet.

And when she draws back the bow for the first time, shooting at a tree, something distracts her halfway through. A noise causes her to let go of the string, arrow falling at her feet.

Aba jumps to the noise. Lin looks over to see him put up his fists, cesti ready for a fight.

“Show yourself!” he says. “What brings you to this spot?”

A shake of some brush, and another kid comes out. He’s badly bruised on one shoulder, and his bangs cover one of his eyes.

“S-sorry,” he says. “I didn’t think-- I was curious what I heard. My kin teased me and I--” He looks to her. “Who are you?”

Lin opens her mouth “Li--”

“A’lin,” Aba says, cutting her off. Oh, yes, she was told that she had to say A before her name when she wasn’t with clan. “Don’t.”

“But he’s hurt,” she says. “Maybe he can learn the bow too!”

Aba sets his cesti aside. “I am not the best with the bow, you know that, kid.”

“But if he knows, he can protect himself!” She walks over to the boy and holds out her hand. “What’s you’re name”

He gives it to her.

“Guess I got two kids to teach now,” Aba says. “But listen here, kid, I expect you to match my niece in listening.”

“I’m good at that,” the boy says. “It’s the thing I’m best at. I’ll be good. I promise.”

Lin smiles. She can’t wait for her next lesson.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While the implication that the boy she meets is G'raha, that's only true in the story where she's the WoL. And maybe in some Adventurer Friend universes (depending on my friends' own opinions on the matter). Otherwise, he's just a kid from a different local tribe.


	13. Wax

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From an Alternate Universe splinter I call the "Dark Fluffy" Universe, since while there's dark elements, it's mostly meant for Domestic Fluff. Sometime between the events of Eden and 5.1, during a visit to Norvrandt, Lin finds that time on the source has slowed to a near-crawl, and if she leaves for even a few minutes, disaster could strike in Norvrandt, so she chooses to stay, knowing that when time returns to normal, it'll be months, if not years for Norvrandt.

“You are quite calm, for someone who does not know when they can return home.”

Lin looks from the mirror to G’raha. “I would not be surprised if I could find a way to prolong my youth should it be needed.”

Seconds. Had it ever been seconds G’raha had to deal with in the past? From what she gathered, a hundred years passed in seven months. She’s not doing that math, though. Not for the average flow of time.

It doesn’t mean she is fully calm. Her tail has too much energy, tip twitching every which way, a toe tapping, hoping that it would speed time on the source up if she looks long enough.

“Might I ask a question?” he says. “I was told of you fades by Alphinaud. Read about them even.”

“My fades?”

She twitches more.

“I don’t know what to call it. The historians of the early Eighth Umbral Era deemed four times you disappear from history that. All that’s known is that they’re tied to a sword.”

She pulls on her chain and shows the three stones there. The pulsing green bard stone, the bright blue and white dragoon, and the murky teal and black of the Dark Knight stone.

Lin clutches onto the last of the three and lets her dress transform into armor. Her bow shift into a crystalline blade as long as she is tall. “This is what you’re asking about, no? My skills as a dark knight?”

G’raha nods his head. “I admit that when I first checked upon you, thinking one of such fades mentioned would be a good chance to call upon you, I saw I was quite wrong. Forgive me that lack of privacy, but I do understand if you don’t wish to talk directly about them, but they always fascinated me.”

She sets the sword aside and moves to the Umbilicus. “Had you asked me when our stories crossed paths again, I would be less willing, but now, perhaps you can tell me some tales of the time you came from, whether you journeyed to gather the data on Alexander and Omega with the Ironworks.”

His eyes narrow in surprise. “A trade, you mean?”

“I often was not in a good place during these… fades. The only one I was fine during was a third, if one lasted moons instead of weeks.”

She starts telling the tale, starting from when she found a corpse the very night her husband died. How she channeled her rage and helplessness at what she witnessed into a personal fight. About the way her soul has fractured before (in hindsight, Emet-Selch’s lecture about sundering makes more sense after she brings that up again). About her companions Sidurgu and Rielle.

“I suppose there’s a new fifth fade I didn’t have in your time. Before I came here, I called upon my sword for a moment, check on Sid and Rie. They’re doing perfectly fine, but I travelled the areas, finding those whose path mine crossed with this sword, and speaking with that side of myself again.”

“And?”

Lin laughs. She returns her armor to the dress she wore before. “They know I’m in a better place. None of that fade was painful. You once told me that I made countless lives better, and what most don’t understand is that the sword may be tied to grief and anguish, but also to love and hope. Seeing those I’ve made better, even if only in a small way, it makes me more powerful and reminds me of the latter.”

She gestures. “Your turn now, Raha. Should the memories not overpower you.”

He obliges her. After he mentions arriving in Dravania, his talk gets overloaded with technical terms she’d expect from any Ironworks employee, but his own excitement of seeing a marvel like Alexander in person makes her heart sing. She remembers quite well that she was much the same during that journey with the Marchers into the metal primal. (Them and Biggs and Wedge and Cid and Mide and… so many others).

He catches himself. “I’m boring you, aren’t I? I don’t think finding ways of replicating the Prime version of Alexander must be interesting.”

She shakes her head. “But looking at your excitement reminds me why I adore you. The way your eyes widen and hands move. I can’t stop watching, even if I don’t understand the technology behind it.”

“We should find a way to preserve you,” he says.

“Let me have a few days, and we can wax philosophic until then. I have all the time in the world to push forward.”


	14. Scour

The Umbilicus is a mess.

So many books he kept, ones that may be lost to time should he not have kept them, yet it causes so much of the space to be empty

He knows he left his favorite of the texts somewhere. The one that fully convinced him to make this trip, this slow suicide mission.

A story of the Warrior’s bravery despite everything. Almost written like a bedtime story for young children. Philia’s occasional attacks on the Crystarium and the rest of Lakeland always make him seek out the comfort of something more heroic than merely staving off an attack. A Pyrrhic victory,

And this time, Philia is gone, so he doesn’t know what brought upon the attack. Was it the Warrior’s mass of light? If so, he hopes they don’t know the truth, don’t suspect such a thing. Perhaps Vauthry’s control over the Kholusian Warden had him bring it upon the airship.

He doesn’t need the recollections of the Eorzean-Garlean War. No books on Black Rose. Nothing he could have seen since he arrived, nor anything he seeks to prevent.

He needs the memoirs of Count Fortemps, or so the book claims to be. Heavensward instead is a book about the Warrior and their choice to look upon a broken land and change it for the better. A story about the grief over losing a son who followed such a person, but refusing to blame them.

He needs to read it, one more time, while the Warrior is off in Ahm Areng.

“Looking for something?”

The nasal voice of the Ascian catches his attention. His ears twitch, but he does his best to keep them from doing so too much. He turns around. “I did not expect you to sta–” He cuts himself off when he sees the Garlean body holding the very book he looks for.

“Exarch, you’re nothing, if not predictable.”

If he wants the book, he’ll have to entertain the man, in more ways than one.

The Ascian grins. “Now, I must ask, what will you do to seek out your comfort?”


	15. Dreams of Another

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the WoL who just loves being spoiled sweet and savory.
> 
> Loosely inspired by a conversation I had this morning during the Live Letter.

He doesn’t dream, in part due to the rarity of sleep, but even when the Exarch has need of it, the most he gets are picture perfect memories of the past.

So it is to his surprise when he rests one night shortly after the fall of Hades that he is not in a memory, but a blackness filled with crystalline stars. Much like the Warrior told him about their crossing.

Perhaps this is some memory of the Tower of their journey to the first? He always suspected it had some sort of consciousness ever since they merged.

“I found you.” The voice is a hint nasal, but there’s a comfort to it, unlike the other he knew with such a gift.

The Exarch turns, surprised by his lucidity. A man is by him. Elf (or would he be Elezen?), hair of ice and eyes of water, dressed in chain mail.

“You needn’t worry, friend,” the elf says. “I am an ally, I assure you. Though not one of much power these days.”

For a moment, the man’s midsection opens in a hole of white hot aether, perhaps the stagnancy of light helped speed the process?

He realizes who this man is. The former lover of the Warrior, one who they never stopped gushing over during their time breaking open the tower.

“You’re Haurchefant,” he says, his voice tense with shorck. “What are you doing here? What is it you wish?”

“The warrior made their way to my memorial a while back, and told me of the time they spent, to my surprise, in another world. I am pleased to see they are still the hero I remember them as. Or rather, that they’ve remembered they are.”

G’raha pauses, unsure what to make of the man’s discussion. “I am pleased to see they remember you, after all this time. But what do you mean, remembered?”

Haurchefant looks away. “The past few times, there was a tiredness to them. How I wished I was capable of holding them, but I can only occasionally find myself by their side following them. And the times I could see them before this trip, they were quite lost, especially after the fight with this primal, Tsukiyomi.”

He smiles and looks to G’raha. “But then they told me about this other world they saved from the brink of destruction. The friends they made, and more importantly, they begged me forgiveness for moving past my death. Not that they needed to, especially from how they discussed this new heart of theirs. I must admit I was quite curious to have our paths cross.”

And so the man found himself in his dreams. “I admit that I wish I had followed them once during a visit to Dragonhead, I would have much liked to meet you when I was a mere scholar, a bit infatuated with them. Yet I wanted to respect their private life, and more, was distracted by the Tower’s secrets.”

Haurchefant laughs. “Quite splendid, then, that we agree on one thing. The warrior’s smiles…”

“Are to be protected,” G’raha finishes. “Is there more you wish to say?”

“Take care of them, G’raha,” Haurchefant says. “I know you will, just by looking at you. But that is my wish for them, to never become the Weapon of Light they so fear.”

He nods his head. “I promise that as well. They have always been themself first, and the Warrior second to me. A hero, yes, but a friend, and now lover, most important.”

After that, this ghostly dream turns to a few secrets the Warrior has not let on to him, Secret spots to make them smile, foods he hadn’t thought they would love, and memories Haurchefant only shares due to their shared love.

It is a shame he couldn’t save the man as well, but he found out that by the time he arrived, he had passed on. Either way, he’d take care of the warrior, and protect every smile.


	16. Building a Legend in Mind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a bit trickier than the others, but this is also a scene that may be part of something larger if I ever do manage to work on the earlier parts of an Exarch-POV missing/altered/expanded scene fic I'm writing. The middle was easy to write, but the beginning is hard.

Every time the Exarch looks through the mirror, see if the time has come, the same fears come to his mind.

What if he fails? What if the flow of time on the source accelerates beyond his control? What if A’lin resists his plea?

And still, every time he sees her, she is like the moon and stars he hasn’t seen in epochs. A legend to those around her. The Warrior of Light, the Dragonsong, drowned in titles he missed her gain during his time dormant.

Last he saw her was during one of her fades. A new title granted. She is the Swirling Abyss to the few who know the truth of her path.

This time, she faces down a Dragon in a place that looks like the Empty. The way she switches between blade, bow, and lance takes his breath away.

How can he ever command the respect of her now? He may be immortal, but he is of little help to others.

But perhaps this is the Burn. The Scouting she faces.

It’s been almost a century he’s waited here, so he needs to focus, time cannot change too much. If what he has heard is correct, then the start of the war that ends her life is only ten days away. He cannot let her fight in the Ghimlyt Dark.

The hair on the back of his neck stands at end. Once he calls her, what will happen next?

Despite his fears of asking help from a Legend like her, he has to be ready.


	17. (Not) A God

Lin stands on a pedestal. She’s not in her armor, but a dress of pale blue, gold trim. Her forehead is heavy with gems instead of her usual cap, neck and fingers adding to the weight. All she wants is to get off, but the pillar keeps her far to high. All around her, bodies bow.

“Hail our goddess, the Warrior of Light.”

The chant is unison.

She refuses to be like this.

Those closest hold up crystals of the six elements, in the hexagram she knows too well from the Rising Stones. Astral and Umbral. Up and down.

“Don’t do this,” she says. “I’m not--”

The voices cut her off. “Strength to protect, strength to fight. Strength to defeat our foes”

Each stone lights up in turn. Water. Fire. Lightning. Earth. Ice. Wind.

Each has its aether connect itself to her in beams. A’lin throws up her arms to defend herself, but they connect to her heart in searing pain.

Her body transforms against her wishes. She is more than a primal. She doesn’t know what she looks like, but those around her are in awe.

“Come my children,” her voice says. “Let us take what is ours.”

She throws herself out of her bed in that dream. That nightmare. The sheets of the encampment wrapped too tight for her to move her legs.

Just a dream. It was just a dream.

Thank the gods it was a dream and nothing more.

Perhaps she should see if the promise would work. Ask for help from Haurchefant. He would remind her how everything is fine.

“Lin?”

She can’t. Lyse arrives and looks to her. A smile on her face.

“What is it?” she asks. “I pray that is good news based on the news.”

“A line of the Garelean soldiers broke. We have a way to press forward. But some of our people refuse to take this opening alone. If you don’t mind, would you lead this unit?”

A’lin pushes herself out of bed and picks up her bow. “I suppose I must. The line cannot stay broken long.”

She’s not a god. She’s not a god.

A’lin is the Weapon of Light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case this wasn't obvious. This is a story from the bad future. The moment that dooms Hydaelyn to the Eighth Umbral Calamity, in fact.


	18. A Legend Ends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a continuation of the previous one, and is a headcanon for the Dark Timeline Lin
> 
> Namely, that her death to Black Rose was at least partly Suicide.
> 
> So needless to say, there's two content warnings for this chapter: Death in general, and suicide in particular. If you cannot handle either, this chapter is best left alone.

A’lin doesn’t falter, despite the dreams of becoming a primal continuing. Every step of the way, the Scions and Eorzean Leaders are with her.

The marchers have left. Rakka for civil ventures, M’yrr due to some foretelling he saw. Ikarus, Mekoto, Arran, and all the others follow the two away from this field.

There’s one thing she’s good at. One thing people need her as.

She needs to be the symbol, and cannot take a break from the fight. Every second she’s away from the front line is a second that the advance can fail.

“Fall back!” someone shouts. “The Empire released a gas here!”

A gas? “What kind of gas?”

“It’s one we’ve heard reports on. a poison gas they’ve worked on. But it seems more potent than–”

She doesn’t need to hear any more. A’lin pushes forward, like the weapon she is. She has heard of it, but ever since the break weeks ago, she hasn’t focused on much.

She can handle it.

And if she cannot, then at least she’ll be free.

People shout her titles at her, choosing to listen to the scout.

They can’t handle it, but she will.

She must.

As she goes forward, she starts to smell something almost sweet, like a rose. The dust aound her turns to black mist, thicker and thicker it gets.

Her body resists pushing forward. The run turns to a crawl, and she falls.

At least she dies free.


	19. Stardust Wings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More from the Dark Fluffy AU. I'll write what comes in the middle one day, but I need to plot out enemies bosses and all those things.

A’lin stands by the gates of Lyhe Ghiah. “Titania, I humbly request entry for consultation.”

“You needn’t do that my sapling,” the Kings’ voice says in her mind. “You could have used my personal name, anywhere.”

She holds onto her bow and takes a breath. “Such is true, but I would rather come to you, and have a formal audience.”

Feo-Ul laughs and the door open for her. “What is it, please, A’lin, I can do anything for you.”

Lin explains everything to Titania. She is one of very few on this reflection to know the true cosmology of the world, one of fewer still that set foot on the Source (in a manner of speaking)

“So, the world you come from is frozen in time, and should you leave, you’ll return far in the future?”

She nods her head. “While I don’t wish to take your position, Feo-Ul, I thought perhaps you would know of something to help me survive the years I am bound here.”

Feo-Ul nods her head. “I know just the item to give you. The Stardust Wings. Meant for a consort should we be of a Fae that enjoys such, or for a King who lacks their own to transform. However, Titania has been born of a Pixie for several reigns, and when the flood came, we abandoned our home, and believed the Wings lost.”

It’s a lead, but there’s more she needs to know. “Would I be able to surrender the wings? How much of a Fae would I become?”

Feo-Ul gasps. “You cannot think to claim them, my sapling.”

“But I do, my lovely branch,” she says. “The rules of the Fae you have given me are ones I would gladly abide by, should I be allowed to travel Norvrandt as I see fit.”

“You will become a fae, but your form shall stay your own. It will halt time for your body, aging neither outside nor within. The Stardust Wings only are physical should you wish, but even when you do not, there will always be an asterism behind you of the form they claim.”

“And should I relinquish them?” Lin asks.

“You will always be Fae, love, though you will be mortal again in body, aging and dying as they do.”

She doesn’t think twice. “Where was the land you once called home, Titania. I shall claim them should they continue to exist.”

Lin listens to the directions. Far too familiar to her. The location is the same as Sohr Khai on the source. Not too far into the Empty, but she faces the Empty nonetheless. Earth and Water is safe, but the air will still be stagnant.

While A’lin sets out on foot, she returns by air, wings like the night sky allowing her to take to the air.


	20. A Perfect Meal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was in the mood for something fluffy, the prompt disagreed, so I disagreed right back.
> 
> It's sandwiches. Sandwiches are bisected.

The Exarch knows his way around the Crystarium. While it has been quite rare for him to show himself in recent years, with the arrival of the guest he awaited for a century, there is much to be done in such a short period of time.

With them away in Il Mehg, he has much to plan. He prays the fae folk will not be too much trouble, but with the news that Ran’jit managed to get away, and lead his forces to the north, they may be more ally than enemy for the time being.

Last he checked upon the mirror, the warrior needed only retrieve the Crystal Shoes. The Exarch has no doubt that the Warrior will achieve their task and return within two days, so he needs to plan a gift of thanks for his friend.

He makes his way to the Musica Universalis Markets. While many have their attention drawn to the more eye-catching stalls full of jewelry and armor, he makes his way to some with everything he needs. A butcher for a rail’s breast, a ponze of flour, a half dozen eggs, and several vegetables.

He was not the most skilled culinarian he knows, but he knows he can make the bread from scratch. He needs to keep up the calm demeanor while he is oustide the tower, but on the inside, he worries about the Warrior. There is little doubt he’d make it through the fight unscathed, but perhaps he severely underestimated their ability ot withhold the light. Perhaps they’d start to fight with Titania.

He can use those worries as he kneads the nuts into the dough.

It takes some time, but he makes his way to the Crystalline Mean and requests a facility from the Facet of Nourishing. More than once he considered making a kitchen in the Tower, but the need to face everything is rare.

So instead he sets everything apart. The bread should be made first. It would take until sunset to make, and the only thing that would take near as long is the rail’s breast he plans to use for the protein.

Still, every step that day goes as he hopes, a rich crust for the bread, mouthwatering rail sliced thin, a simple mayonnaise (And a bowl of egg salad as well), and carefully prepared vegetables.

He starts to hear shouts as he slices the bread. He needs to finish soon, lest the Warrior return before he is done. Four of each sandwich made, all he needs to do is cut them into halves and present it.

He hopes he made something the Warrior would love.


	21. Snow and Biscuits

The sight of the snow of Coerthas excited A’lin for a long time. It was one thing that kept her pushing forward during her time with Cid and Alphinaud. And a reason to return after she defeated the Ultima Weapon.

Sadly, it was nothing like the soft fluff in bedtime stories.

Instead, every step makes a disgusting crunch as she traverses in the Wyrm Greaves Alberic gave her.

It made that sound with leather jackboots as well, but it seemed to louder and more annoying now she wore plate armor.

It taunts her.

She failed to do what she had been drafted to – Caputre Estinien.

She failed at the altered mission – Help Estinien.

Instead, he’s gone from well meaning to a full on heretic, maybe? But everything he said when he turned his lance against her in Steel Vigil makes her wonder.

What if there’s something more to this war? What if the Ishgardians aren’t the knights in shining armor they always seemed to be.

Waiting as she nears Camp Dragonhead is a familiar face. Skin and Hair as pale as faerie story snow, a moral system fitting the very knights she dreamed of as a child.

“Lin,” Haurchefant says. “I had hoped perhaps there would be another with you. It would have been an honor meeting the Azure Dragoon. Though you look as if you have spent too long outside. Pray, make haste to my office. What drink would you like? Chcolate? Tea? Mead?”

“Tea,” she says.

A’lin goes to his office, but she doesn’t speak much at first. Her mind keeps replaying her fight as if it was an echo she dealt with.

A metal mug finds itself in front of her, along with some biscuits. “For you, my dear.”

“Haurchefant, you are too kind, eventually someone will mistake your kindness for romantic interest.”

He chuckles and sits across her. “I should hope someone I feel that way for would believe such. Now, tell me what bothers you, A’lin. At least, if you wish to. If not, I can give you some other conversation.”

She tries to take the latter option, but everything falls out as she sips the tea, enjoys the less taunting crunch of the biscuits in her mouth. She hadn’t thought she’d tell anyone of the mission she ended up with, but Haurchefant is always so genuine and sweet. He didn’t have to offer her a room.

And then at the end of it, a few more words tumble out. “You know, when I said someone would mistake your kindness for interest, I meant me. I have. Despite everything.”

He doesn’t say anything. She looks to his face, and sees his eyes wider than before, the easy smile she knows him for gone.

“I feel stupid. But I’ve had these feelings for some time. Ever since we shared that mead, after I helped with Lord Haillenarte. But it’s obvious I’m not the right person for someone like you.”

Haurchefant reaches to her. “And I thought I could not have been more obvious in my affection for you. An interest since we met, that has grown with your fame. I worried I would seem like I only cared because of the deeds you’ve done since, so I avoided speaking such words.”

A’lin laughs as the words come. Mutual interest, but both assured the other could not reciprocate.

“Mead?” He offers.

She nods her head. “And your personal hearth, should it be available.”

“Tis indeed.”

For the next few days, she doesn’t deal with the crunch of stale snow.


	22. (Not) A King

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of headcanon for this story.

G’raha’s head hurts. The crossing through the rift was painful. The same with the time he crossed. Biggs did not warn him that the trip could be nauseating.

It felt as if the crystal tower tumbled the whole time, and he hardly knows if he’s even the right way up. Only one way for him to find out.

He tries to keep his last meal in as he walks down the sweeping staircase, too bright and reflective after everything he went through, but G’raha has to push forward.

When he finally makes it out, G’raha gives in and vomits into a very purple bush, It’s daytime, or at least, light out. He must have made it to the location he needed.

He holds out his hand, unsure just what to make of the way it has changed color and texture from peachy skin to Syrcus Tower Blue crystal.

Best make sense of his surroundings as well. G’raha looks around, the view resembles that of Mor Dhona before the Battle of SIlvertear Lake. A bit more purple than green, perhaps, but the flora and rock composition otherwise seems right.

He lets himself wander, make good of the location and let himself work off the aches and nausea.

“Who are you?”

He turns around and sees a few Elezen holding up weapons against him. “I beg pardon?” G’raha puts his hands up reflexively.

“His hand,” one says. “It’s like that mountain that appeared.”

He looks between them. “Friend or foe?” A second says. “You and your mountain. What are you?”

“Friend,” he says. “I am nothing if not a friend to you all. I come to aid you with your crisis.”

He sounds like a primal, but each word is true.

“And what can a Mystel like you tell of our crisis?”

He doesn’t know anything. A flood of light forestalled, but _something_ happened, and forced a rejoining. The light in the sky must be a symptom.

Before he can try to guess, a creature launches towards them. It looks like some Amdapori statues he once glazed over reading in Sharlayan.

“Eater!” the apparent leader shouts, and they start to fight the beast. However, the group is not large enough, and the Amdapori-looking thing has the upper hand.

G’raha focuses his energies and releases the coldest of Ice Aether at the creature.

It stills and disentigrates.

“I know not what you face,” he says. “But I know one thing for certain. I can offer safety. Let me help. I shall learn, and give my all to protect you all from this foe.”

Half the group bows to him, as if he were more. The others still look at him in reverence. “A new king is come.”

“I... no, I am not...”

Perhaps he made things worse, now. But time will be all he has to see to tell.

“If you get the rest of your home, I can take you to the Syrcus Tower,” he says. “I can protect you.”


	23. Oasis

Lin thought herself unable to love again.

Not that she tried after Haurchefant passed away, but she felt she couldn’t. He was too… too unique in her mind.

It does not help that after her discussion with him, after Myste, she doesn’t feel she’s ready. But there’s readiness, willingness, and whether she does.

When it comes to love – romantic love – A’lin is a desert, and any who seek her affections as such would be quick to see a mirage, and die of thirst. Or so she thinks.

She arrives on the first and is swallowed by the water of Silvertear Lake. Her trip towards what seems to be the Crystal Tower is made in drenched clothes. Every step is a weight as if she has to cross that very desert with nary a drop to drink.

She’s half-certain she’s about to die by the hand of a soldier when she hears someone run towards them, the crunch of the undergrowth there.

And while she denies it, when the body she saw in a dream shows up, she feels as if she’s taken a step into a shallow spring, the desert fading away. Every small kindness the man gives is a genuine thought, not some need to placate a weapon. Every moment with him a step deeper into the spring.

When she brings night, and the Exarch bows, the spring is as deep as her calves. He thinks he’s old, and at times, she feels as old as he must be, yet she refuses to let herself think of it as anything more than an alliance. Perhaps a friendship.

After a second land has night arrive thanks to her, she sings on top of the Rotunda, a song forming in her head. Too many lyrics missing, but a melody is solid.

The Exarch sings with her, and while something is familiar about his voice, she’s finally aware of the water she steps into, how it’s up to her knees, to continue a metaphor that she constantly finds.

Despite Y’shtola’s worries, Lin falls deeper after Vauthry’s fight. It feels like half the time she talks with Lue-Reeq about something other than Andreia, the Exarch is in her mind, if not her lips. The Eulmoran lordling teases her about the way her mind wanders. When they fell the VIrtue and the Exarch congratulates them, Reeq even finds some excuse to leave them alone.

By that moment, A’lin would think perhaps her waist, but as they speak about everything and nothing, the steady pace her heart has turned the parched desert around her into the very life-giving lake she fell into has drowned her.

Yet he couldn’t love her in return, could he? That was a question that was too heavy. He always insists he has the mind that matches his age, and is he not a native of the First?

“Your voice bothers me,” she says. She’s half drunk.

He tries to apologize, but she cuts him off.

“It’s not bad. You remind me of someone, but I wish I knew who.” She talks about everything he reminds her of.

When he returns one of her memories and mixes it with a certain phrase, though…

She doesn’t know for certain. He can’t be him. If that’s true then the story is deeper, darker, and she doesn’t know what to make of each phrase.

But she knows for certain she loves him, and the phrase he used fits nicely as the fourth line of the refrain.

_Eternal winds from the land ascend_

Along with the phrase he gave, altered to fit.

_Here to lift us so we won’t end_.


	24. A Gentleman's Lullaby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yesterday I did not succeed at writing something. But hey, we shouldn't force things, right?

A’lin’s head spins as she makes her way back from Ahm Areng. Another Night returned, but at a cost she doesn’t like.

Can she hold back the light? What’ll happen afterwards? What even is the Exarch’s plan?

There is a list she has of possible people. Each has some flaw in her requirements.

Aba’s nostalgia is wrong.

Haurchefant wouldn’t explain the voice (or the fact that the Exarch is obviously a Mystel)

Her lost friend was a boy and shouldn’t bring this feeling up.

G’raha… well, G’raha fits her criteria, but adds too many questions.

Someone posessing him takes away most of the questions she doesn’t want answered, but then means she cannot trust the man.

Perhaps a shard of M’yrr or Raks?

Neither have a voice anything like his though.

When she gets to her room, she only wants to sit down. She hardly knows what she says before she collapses.

She can hardly see the world around her and hardly stands before there’s a knock on the door.

Her vision blocks the world on either side of her as she makes her way, but walking feels less painful. When she opens the door, it’s as if her vision clears. The Exarch is there.

She tries to lie about what happened, but whatever he was told about her fight was closer to the truth than she would like. He gives her comfort when she needs it.

The nostalgia takes over her as they talk. He even brings her sandwiches again.

When he starts to stand up, Lin takes his hand. “Stay with me. Until I sleep.”

He pulls back in surprise. “But you are not dressed for bed.”

“Then go outside and count to one hundred. I’ll put on…” she looks around, the migraine and a subsequent attack make it hard to see. “That robe. Then you can come in with me.”

He nods and does as she asks. She invites him over to the bed, setting the desk chair by it.

“I can sing you a lullaby,” the Exarch says. “If you think it would help this pain. Tis one I sang Lyna as a babe.”

She pouts. She doesn’t want to be seen as a child. Still, she lets him.

It’s funny. As he takes her hand and sings to her, the Echo doesn’t tranlate the words for her, but they’re familiar enough for her. The structure is like what little Allagan she knew, and the words seems to fit it as well. From her perspective, she’s certain she can see scarlet eyes with slitted pupils under the hood, hair silvered and crystalized at the tips.

Only two options are left as she drifts to sleep. She’d rather have questions as to a pain he goes through than worry about what’s behind those eyes.

Her breathing slows and she finds the song does as it should.


	25. Slosh

“Hey!” Raks says as she walks to the Marcher’s Quarters. “Haven’t seen you in months! What happened? Last I remember, you flew off on that chocobo of yours after you got out of the Chirurgeon’s ward!”

She laughs to herself. “You must have heard the news, though.” Too much happened. She wasn’t going to talk about the other world bullshit with the Warriors of Darkness she faced. She doesn’t understand that. She hopes she never will. However, what came after…

Her face falls. “We’re at war with the Garleans. Did you not hear about the Wall?”

Raks’s tail twitches. “Is that what the others were talking about. I try not to think about Ala Mhigo much. But if you’re like that, I think you need a drink.”

She’s cautious. It may have been months, but she doesn’t trust alcohol yet. Every time she thinks to reach for it, she hears that part of her, the bit that sounds like Haurchefant, remind her of the last time.

But she can trust Raks. She may not trust all the Marchers, but Raks is the one she’s closest to, and if he would hurt her, then her trust with the others is gone.

Lin lets him know her favorite Cider, and he takes her over to Carline Canopy. The mood there used to be something light and fun, but with Gridania quickly becoming a waypoint for those who’ve decided to follow General Aldynn into aiding a revolution for Ala Mhigan independence, she finds more in their uniforms, red and black with the usual yellows she remembers.

Miounne has lots of the cider she missed for so long, and she finds herself taking pint after pint, as each part gets harder.

“So this is where you went Rakka,” another voice says. She remembers well, the plains of Dravania.

“Oh!” Raks says and turns. “Y’haven’t met M’yrr yet, right? He came a month or so back, said someone we trust knew he’d fit in. He’s Ala Mhigan, right?”

“Gyr Abanian,” M’yrr says. “My family trusts the Ala Mhigans, but we are not part of their choice. And A’lin was the one who thought that should i wish to stay here in Eorzea, I would find comfort with you all.”

Lin smiles and sips her third cider of the afternoon. “Yeh, he’s an interesting one. Bigger Marcher than any of us could consider ourselves. Surprised y’like him that much.”

Raks continues to gush, and her tongue loosens into something more general with her friends. While she will likely have to leave to help the Scions in a few days, for now, she can enjoy herself.

The next day, she’ll definitely regret the cider, though.


	26. Smooth as Oil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Actually for prompt 24, but at the time nothing came up. Then I had an idea. Then I lost it again. And now I have it again and wrote it.

The Exarch does not want to be in Eulmore. Over the past fifteen years, the government has grown increasingly... complacent about the situation with the Sin Eaters. On the one hand, it makes some level of sense when one lacks the knowledge of what will come like he does, but on the other, he had done his best to foster trust, and the previous mayor had spurned it.

He says previous. He means last. His sucessor is none other than his odd son Vauthry, who insists on the title of King. Something too many seem willing to acquiesce too.

Still, it’s important for him to be at this coronation. He needs to give the illusion that he wants the Crystarium’s relations to stay the same. It’s not only an illusion, there is much Kholusia can give, and with Eulmore at the center of the attentions, he needs some level of cordial relations.

He puts on his largest smile and tries to smooth his voice out as he makes his way to Vauthry. “Congratulations,” he says. “It is wonderful to see you here today Va-- _Lord _Vauthry. Your father always had hopes for you.”

He’s still a boy, perhaps he doesn’t know about oddities. He can use him at least until it’s time for him to summon the Warrior.

“He always said I would,” the boy says. “It’s only right I be the King he always saw me as.”

Something bothers him about the boy. His tone. One would think he’d have some respect for his father, especially after the circumstances of his death, but there’s no care. He says those words as a matter of fact.

He tries to change the topic more than once and flatter the boy, but nothing gives. Is it too obvious he’s false? Or perhaps those circumstances came from impatience.

“Very well,” he says. “I take my leave, my lord. I hope we can stay in contact.” If only out of some level of necessity. It is obvious this city is no longer an ally for him.

As he starts to make his leave, someone catches his attention. A hand on his shoulder.

“You are the Crystal Exarch, are you not?”

The Exarch turns around and thins his lips. He doesn’t know who this man is. He’s tall, almost too tall for the Hume build he has. Normal ears, and too lithe for a Galdgent.

“Forgive me,” he says. “If you know who I am, you know I can only spend so long beyond the walls of the Crystarium. I feel faint.” A lie.

“I will take you back,” the man says. His hair is mostly some dark color, brown or black most likely, but he won’t dismiss dark blue or violet, save for a long stripe of white on one side “It would be much quicker for me than your amarokeep friends. But first, let me introduce myself somewhere private. The room Vauthry let me have. I promise it will be no more than half a bell.”

He holds tight to his staff, but as he looks around, no one seems to notice either him or this man dressed in black. In fact, everything seems oddly still, as if the time is between seconds and the two of them managed to slip between them.

“You are an interesting man, Exarch. So rich with aether. Why, there’s only a handful I can think of that are denser with it.”

He watches the man. “An intriguing statement. I suppose it is a compliment. Thank you. Is that all, sir? I hardly see the need for such privacy if that is the case.”

“Your purpose for this world. Certainly one brimming with aether like you can tell the world is dying. Why prolong your life so?”

He’s waiting for someone. For the Warrior of Light back on the source. The world is still too far in the past in comparison.

“My reasons are mine alone, though I do not believe this world will expire within my lifetime. I have faith in those around me.”

“So it’s not someone like me,” the man says. It’s more to himself. If the Exarch weren’t a miqo’te, he’d not have heard it either.

He turns around. “I see, so you are an Ascian, thinking you could recruit me.”

The man nods his head and bows. “I have business on the source as well, but I felt this body all I need for this meeting. You would know too much had I taken a shape I enjoy for the moment.” He puts his hand over his face and lines of red appear over his face. That sign is one he cannot mistake from what he read. Emet-Selch.

The Ascian grins. “I do hope you do not think I will let you fulfill whatever you wish to do.”

He watches for a moment, trying to figure out when this man will attack him. Were it someone from this world, he would win, but an Ascian? Well, at best it would be a test and the enemy would fight back.

“And I do not believe any knowledge you can give me would change my intent, Ascian. This world will not end under my watch. Nothing you can do will change it.”

For a moment, the Ascian freezes, confused. “You cannot be serious in admitting such a challenge to me, Exarch. One I cannot refuse. But your mind seems intriguing. Mayhap despite your best interests, I shall find the way to make you understand. You’re too long lived, too dense with aether, to truly see such lives as worthy.”

“And I am sure I can use that knowledge to end the menace on this world. Now, you promised me a return to the Crystarium?”

The man snaps, and the two are on the Amauro Launch. “I will return, Exarch.”

He smiles “And I will look forward to our battles.”

The man is as smooth as oil, but he always thought that of Ascians. It’s a good thing he can be as smooth as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fight between the two seems to imply it's been going on for some time, and so at some point Emet introduced himself, and probably popped in every few years going "Hey, done with the world yet?" while trying to figure out just what G'raha's relation to Xande's bloodline is. All while G'raha's hoarding the info for ways to defeat the man.
> 
> Also, I do like the G'raha is a reincarnation of Hythlodaeus hypothesis.


	27. Overcomplications

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From a Fealty AU I'm dabbling in.

“Lin! Wait up!”

She can hear the Crystal Prince call out to her, half a round below her on the stairs. She doesn’t slow down for him.

“You said you needed to find something, what is it? Why can’t I help you?”

She grew up with the story of Neo-Allag. How the descendants of someone gifted with the blood of Xande deciphered the way to enter the Tower, and discovered several key members of the old Allagan Empire around. How each were defeated, and the key to their longevity, a powerful voidsent, discovered. And how they ended the voidsent and a covenant through their gifted blood.

It never made sense to her, the legend. Why did they need to share so much. Could they not have simply said they claimed the tower and with it wish to return the world to the fairy story version of Allag?

It seemed so... overcomplicated.

The Prince shoots out a golden rope made of aether. She’s pulled back to him.

“Please,” he says. “You are my guard, my most trusted.” The Prince pulls her mask off. “Tell me what you seek, and I will do it by your side. I don’t want you to put yourself in unnecessary danger.”

His sanguine eyes plead with her. It takes everything she can do to not give in.

“If I am right about what I look for, and you are innocent of any crimes, I would rather be the only one there. I am your Guard, my lord. Danger is what I am here to put myself in front of you for.”

She tries to run ahead again, but he pulls her back. “You forgot how close our battle was, Lin. Tell me, and I shall open the door for you.”

His hand holds firm to her wrist.

She gives in, her fears about the covenant, how none of the women brought were returned, despite what he claimed.

“And what will you do if when I open the gate for you, there’s a broken throne and lack of hollows to the Void?”

“Rest content that their story of heroism is a fine myth. And what would you do if the throne is there, with a hollow of hollows?”

He freezes. “I don’t know, but I would need think about my father and brother’s intentions, and what they would do should they know we traversed so high in the Tower.”

The rest of the trip up is slow. When they reach the final door. G’raha puts his hands on it. Lin presses against him, her own hands on either side of his. “I’ll keep you safe, G’raha.”

She hears some noise in his throat as she says his name. Had she ever said it before aloud? He told her she could, but it never seemed right.

The view from the open doorway is from her fears. She hadn’t known what to imagine of either the throne or the Hollow, yet Xande’s Throne is ten yalms tall, and the hollow that floats above it has to be just as wide. She can practically feel the aether coursing through the room.

G’raha brings the gates shut within seconds and takes her hand. “We should leave.: He can hardly do it.

While the run back to the gate is eaiser than the climb on her body. Her mind cannot stop focusing on the nightmare in the throneroom. Her heart beats faster than it ever has before.

But part of it is not from fear, if she’s honest. At least she has an ally in her Prince, her lord, her charge.

Her G’raha.


	28. Nach reicinn air thunnaichean òir

It’s not rare for A’lin to sit facing Lakeland on top of an archway by the Rotunda. It’s one of her favorite spots, with a view others can’t figure out her way of getting there. It takes a small leap of faith, but she’s managed to perfect it.

The dusk over Lakeland takes her breath away, even now, weeks after she burnt away the corrupted light aether of the Wardens. And for one once called the Warrior of Light, a Seeker of the Sun, she takes to night much better. The way the stars sparkle, far away, yet so close.

There are reasons it helped her write that song for G’raha. It wasn’t for him at first, but the more time she spent with him, the more she fell in love, the more she wanted its message to reach him.

And it did.

But tonight, it’s a different song she composes, something more cheerful, a lovely little minuet about some of her more peaceful wanderings. The notes come easily, but as usual, words are more difficult.

Her simple hum still wraps around her as she remembers vistas few have seen, or at least appreciated.

It’s not long before a harmony to her melody reaches her ears. So she’s gotten the attention of G’raha. Finally. However, the sounds like it comes from another direction than the down she usually finds him.

Lin turns around and smiles. He stands behind the banister, nervous to jump to her.

“I haven’t words this time,” he says, a smile on his face. “This sounds like a song you need write yourself.”

“Then let me instead help you here, so we can sing together.”

She talks him through the steps. Stands up as he reaches the point he needs to jump, holds out her hands for his, in case he over or undershoots.

He jumps to her and she almost stumbles back, but she wraps her hands around G’raha and helps him with his footing. He sits next to her, and together, they attune their voices to each other and sing nonsense lyrics as she finds the melody.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter name comes from the song "Chi Mi Na Morbhena", a Scottish folksong.
> 
> It's a song I've loved for some time, and is emblematic of the character Lin was based on, but whenever I think about either of them, I remember this song.


	29. Judge

“A song contest.” Lin’s tail twitches in annoyance as she looks to K’ome, a new member of the Marchers. “You signed me up to Judge a song constest.”

K’ome shakes her head. “I didn’t sign you up, the head Marchers asked for someone to help them with this, and I thought you’re the Warrior or Light, so who could be better to–”

“You signed me up to judge a song contest. Why couldn’t the heads ask me? Or at least tell me themselves.”

“Are you mad at me?” K’ome’s ears flatten.

Lin sighs. “No. Not about the judge thing. If you didn’t suggest it to them, they would have looked for someone who did. That said, you’re new, let me tell you, don’t call me that title. I won’t go into the specifics. Ask Mekoto if you must. Just know that I have other titles I prefer. Lin of the Dawn, Lin the Skysinger, Lin the Song upon the Wind.”

“That last one is pretty.”

She nods her head. “So, this judging. Do I need to dress up?”


	30. Sleep tight and have pleasant dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I dedicate my final chapter to a friend who mentioned seeing my name show up repeatedly in the tags when searching for things.
> 
> You know who you are. XP

Once upon a time, A’lin had been Light to him. Bright, brilliant, blinding with her skill and heroism. A woman fit for the title. Even though she had another, G’raha found his breath taken away each time he saw her fight, especially the first time when he intended to race her, only to see her take down an enemy with no problem.

He fought alongside her, though he always felt like she did far more work than the rest of the adventurers with them combined. Yet in moments of peace between the various pushes to figure out the Tower, he felt his admiration turn into a friendship, something far more than he expected. However, it helped him think he get over his infatuations.

Then he locked himself away and it became 200 years instead of the few he hoped. She was dead, but her legacy became even stronger than before, her deeds greater than he ever could have imagined. His affections surged and he wanted to do anything to save her, regardless of how dangerous the plan was. A world without her was no world at all.

And then he saw her again when he finally calls her, and the light fades. She’s not a sun, burning those who grow too close, blinding those who look too long. She’s the moon and stars, bright only in comparison to the darkness around them. Part was a melancholy he sensed from her that first day, but even then, it no longer hurt to reach out. No longer surprises him when she’s kind to him. Suspicious at first, but polite.

And it turns to a friendship again. This time, he no longer questions why. He’s a leader, so it makes sense. But there’s more to the friendship they build. She hints at affection, a readiness to move past her most personal of pains.

But now she lays beside him, asleep in the Umbilicus, and he knows the truth.

Lin is not Light, not the Sun nor moon nor stars. Lin is herself, perhaps the cusp of light and darkness, that liminal moment where everything meets, but the beauty of such a time comes from sharing it with others.

G’raha wishes he could sleep as easy as she can, but her form by his side, tail twined with his, ears flicking at an easy rate.

She’s no Warrior of Darkness. Neither word fits.

But she’s his, as long as she’ll have him as well.


End file.
